Thursday, May 01, 2008

New NBC/Wall Street Journal and NY Times/CBS polls have plenty of data to worry Obamaphiles. In the head-to-head national RealClearPolitics.com averages Barack Obama’s lead over Hillary Clinton is shrinking fast. (And many of these polls surveyed voters in significant part before the latest Wright eruption.)

A few tidbits from the NBC/WSJ poll: Obama has dropped 5 points in the “has background/set of values I identify with” and 48% find Obama’s associations with Wright and Bill Ayers a major or moderate concern.

From the NY Times/CBS poll: Obama now is tied with John McCain while Clinton beats him in the head-to-head match ups. And things are heading in the wrong direction on other counts as the Times explains:

Fifty-one percent of Democratic voters say they expect Mr. Obama to win their party’s nomination, down from 69 percent a month ago. Forty-eight percent of Democrats say Mr. Obama is the candidate with the best chance of beating Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, down from 56 percent a month ago.

Obama still leads Clinton in both of these polls. But what will the polls say after the public has digested the latest epsiode in the Wright-Obama debacle?

The real news is now Clinton has more than Harold Ickes’ hunches to discuss with the superdelegates. The Times lets on that “some party leaders and superdelegates said the Wright controversy has given them pause, raising questions about Mr. Obama’s electability in the general election next fall.”

Imagine that. Superdelegates are precisely the type of people (elected official, professional poll watchers, scared of their constituents) who are the most likely to “pause” ( which may be Times-speak for “break out in a cold sweat”) when they see a political firestorm and don’t know if all the shoes have dropped. ...

I listened to pollster Scott Rasmussen last evening. He said his latest polling report for North Carolina does not yet reflect voter reaction to Wright's National Press Club remarks and Obama's condemnation of them. Rasmussen polls reports are based on a mulit-day average of voter response.

Some people I've talked to since Monday say they weren't planning to vote in next Tuesday's primary but now are as a result of Wright's remarks.

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comments:

Some of the Obamaphiles on this blog have convinced themselves that Mr. Obama is either divine or omnipotent--perhaps both. I'm delighted to watch the wheels coming off his campaign even though it means that Rodham may get the Dem nod. It's not a metter of the lesser of two evils, it's quite simply a fact that neither Mr. Obama nor Rodham is qualified to be president--Mr. Obama has extremely limited government experience and his record is woefully left-wing; Rodham's claim of experience is a sham; is anyone naive enough to believe that being First Lady gives one the experience necessary to be Chief Executive of the U.S.? McCain is only marginally better than either of the two Dems. I'd prefer to vote for "none of the above," but I will reluctantly pick McCain.Tarheel Hawkeye

Just heard on the news (05/02)that an increasingly large majority of voters now believe that Mr. Obama subscribes to at least some of Pastor Wright's cockamamee ideas. Of course, Mr. Obama sat quietly in the congregation for about two decades while Wright ranted his despicable hate, so can you blame folks for concluding that Mr. Obama must have thought Wright was, uh, right? I'll repeat my amusement at the wheels coming off Mr. Obama's campaign.Tarheel Hawkeye